Daggermancer
As the name applies, Daggermancer is Necromancer build that focuses on the Poison Dagger skill along with other poison skills and Iron Golem. This is an uncommon build for a Necromancer, because it will be more focused on Necromancer as strong fighter unlike his other incarnations. With proper utilization of skills and gear, this unique melee build can be just as capable as the more common hand-to hand builds in Diablo II. ]] Stat Point Distribution and Paladin.]] This is a rather unique build for the Necromancer, but stock stat point placement should be sufficient *'Strength:' Strength should go high enough only to wear specific weapon or armor. *'Dexterity:' It is preferred to have enough dexterity to have a 75% chance to block. *'Vitality:' The remaining points can go into this stat. *'Energy:' There is no need to add energy to this build. Skills Focused Skills *Poison Dagger: This is the build's main attack, and it should be boosted as high as possible. *Poison Explosion: As a synergy for Poison Dagger, it is recommended to add to this skill. *Poison Nova: As Poison Nova is also going to be a form of attack, it would also be recommended to have this skill maximized. All three skills synergize with each other, so it will benefit the player to max these skills out. Secondary Skills Poison and Bone Skills *Bone Armor (1): Since it is more effective to build on the synergy, only a single point needs to be invested here. *Bone Wall (1-5): This is a synergy for the Bone Armor skill. *Bone Prison(1-5): This is a synergy for the Bone Armor skill. *Corpse Explosion (1-5): This is a very useful skill as it causes area effect damage based on a monster's hit points. It can also provide a third damage element for those times when poison or melee damage is not sufficient, an example being the boss area of the Maggot Lair. Although many people who play Necromancers insist that this skill should be maximized regardless of build, a skill level of 10 (including bonuses) should provide a good area of effect damage, and there is already an 80-point investment in the focused skills. Summoning Skills *Golem (10-20): It is a matter of preference, but either Clay Golem or Iron Golem. Investing twenty points in the golem skill is desirable for maximizing its abilities, but does leave little room for other skills. The player may wish to stop at 10 points and assess the effectiveness of the minion before continuing to put points in this skill. *Golem Mastery(1-10): Also a matter of preference. Putting at least one point in this skill is necessary to obtain the Lower Resist skill, but putting a few extra will benefit your golem. *Summon Resist(1): There is no need to give this skill higher status, since the returns on the investment in this skill diminish very rapidly. It is preferred to use skill bonuses to raise its effect. Curses *Amplify Damage (1-5): Lowers an opponent's damage resistance by 100%. Can break immunities. *Iron Maiden (1): Taken usually as a prerequisite for the rest of the branch *Life Tap (1): Allows friendly units to leech 50% of their damage. *Weaken (1): Usually taken simply as a prerequisite *Terror (1): This skill can have use with breaking up groups of tough non-unique monsters *Decrepify (1-5): Not as effective for breaking physical immunity, but also has a side effect of slowing the victim. *Lower Resist (1): Unlike Conviction, this skill affects all resistances, including poison. However, the skill only grants only grants a 2-3% decrease in a foe's resistances after level 2, so boosting this skill with hard points would be a poor choice. *Dim Vision(0-10): Although entirely optional, this can cause deadly long range monsters like willowisps to cease attacking until they are in melee range. Just remember to refresh the curse if they are still at range when it ends. Equipment Every item that gives skill bonus, attack rating, poison damage, bonus to resistance, attribute bonuses are welcomed for this build. Since this Necromancer build focuses on the Necromancer as a fighter, the player must be aware that the Daggermancer will be able to wear heavy armors and large shields to survive hard battles. Helms *Andariel's Visage: +2 to All Skills, strength bonus, life leech and poison resistance. It does apply a penalty for fire resistance, which can be cancelled with a Ral rune. *Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest: Easy to obtain, dual leech and +15 to all resistances. *Guillaume's Face: The crushing blow and deadly strike bonuses make this an adequate helm for this build. *Crown of Ages: Physical damage reduction, skill bonus and two sockets make this a good choice. *Giant Skull: Crushing blow, knockback, strength bonus and sockets also make this a good choice. Armor *Duriel's Shell has a lot of perks Chief among them being Cannot Be Frozen and resistances. * , for its skill bonuses and resistances. * for the skill bonus and teleport. *Skullder's Ire +1 to all skills and level-dependent magic find. *Shaftstop: A popular choice for melee fighters due to its physical damage reduction. Leviathan's little brother. Shield *Blackoak Shield: Because this build uses daggers the dexterity bonus will be a nice perk in addition to the life bonus. *Spirit: +2 to alll skills and resistance bonuses. *Stormshield: The big perk of this shield is the 35% physical damage reduction. *Gerke's Sanctuary: Resistance bonus, highest chance to block and integer damage reduction from both physical and magic at a level that makes a difference. Gloves *Trang-Oul's Claws is an excellent choice, as it gives extra poison damage. *Steelrend: Crushing blow and enhanced damage will add to the effectiveness of the physical damage aspect of the build. Venom Grips are an easy to find substitute with crushing blow and poison damage. *Soul Drainers: reduce monster defense and dual leech. *Laying of Hands: 350% enhanced damage versus demons and 50% fire resistance. Boots *Gore Rider: These boots have properties valuable to the physical damage aspect of this build. Goblin Toes would also be viable and easier to obtain, but all they possess is the crushing blow aspect. Belt *Nosferatu's Coil: Increased attack speed, life leech and slows target. *Arachnid Mesh: Skill bonus, slows target, faster cast rate. *Verdungo's Hearty Cord: Life related bonuses. A big brother to the String of Ears Dagger *Fleshripper: good physical damage, Crushing Blow, Open Wounds, Deadly Strike. *Blackbog's Sharp: high poison damage, large bonus to Poison Dagger, Poison Nova, and Poison Explosion. *Spineripper: bonus to all Necromancer skills, attack speed bonus, ignore target defense and life leech. *The Jade Tan Do: high poison damage, prevents monster heal, large bonus to poison resist and the cannot be frozen attribute, essential for melee characters past Normal difficulty. Iron Golem Items Basically, player can chose items for his golem creation depending on what he wants of golem to be - attacker or defender. For defense, Leviathan is not a bad choice due to heavy defense bonuses, and Viperfork would also be a choice since golem will attack have a good attach speed and will do more than 300 poison damage on each attack. Variant Build using Trang-Oul's Set Trang-Oul's Avatar set can be used to build an effective Daggermancer. Instead of relying on Iron Golem and Amplify Damage to deal physical damage to poison-immune enemies this build uses Lower Resist and Fire Golem, combined with the Meteor, Fire Wall, and Fire Ball spells granted by the set to deal fire damage. The advantage of this build is that Lower Resist will improve the effectiveness of both fire and poison damage. Fire Golem consumes only mana, allowing you to conserve/sell/trade higher-end items. The major disadvantage is that in Hell mode fire immunity and poison immunity are both fairly common, meaning you will rely much more heavily on curses or a Paladin ally's Conviction aura to break these immunities. Equipment Because this build relies on Trang-Oul's Avatar there is little diversity in the gear selections: once the complete set is equipped the player only has the weapon, rings, amulet, and boot slots left open. * Helm: Trang-Oul's Guise * Armor: Trang-Oul's Scales * Belt: Trang-Oul's Girth * Gloves: Trang-Oul's Claws * Shield: Trang-Oul's Wing * Weapon: ** Blackbog's Sharp: high poison damage, large bonus to Poison Dagger, Poison Nova, and Poison Explosion. ** Fleshripper: good physical damage, Crushing Blow, Open Wounds, Deadly Strike. ** Spineripper: bonus to all Necromancer skills. ** The Jade Tan Do: high poison damage, prevents monster heal, large bonus to poison resist and maximum poison resist. * Boots: Any boots with improved movement speed and/or hit recovery are good choices. Sandstorm Trek are perhaps ideal, but are easily replaced with other unique or rare boots. * Rings: Stone of Jordan and Bul-Kathos' Wedding Band are ideal. Other rare rings may also be suitable. * Amulet: Mara's Kaleidoscope is ideal. Alternatives may include: ** The Rising Sun: bonus to fire skills, including Fire Golem and the spells granted by Trang-Oul's Avatar. ** The Cat's Eye: higher movement and attack speed; makes hit-and-run attacks with Poison Dagger easier. Skills The skill distribution is very similar to the standard Daggermancer, with a few small changes: Primary Skills * Poison Dagger (20) Primary melee attack * Fire Golem (10+) Only summon. Because it does not gain life or defense with each level it is not strictly necessary to max it out. If you choose not to max it out consider putting the extra points into Golem Mastery, Blood Golem, or Iron Golem. * Lower Resist (10+) After skill bonuses from items this skill will be raised to level 15 at minimum, giving a -60% to enemy resistances. This will not always break immunities, so more points here is better. If you have a hireling equipped with the Infinity Rune Word you may be able to spend fewer points here. * Golem Mastery (20), OR 5 points each into Golem Mastery, Blood Golem, Clay Golem, and Iron Golem * Summon Resist (1) Makes your Fire Golem more durable. Due to the steep diminishing returns, the +skills should max out the effectiveness of this skill. Secondary Skills * Poison Nova (20) Synergizes with Poison Dagger, excellent crowd-control spell. * Poison Explosion (1+) Used only for synergy with Poison Nova and Poison Explosion. * Corpse Explosion (1+) Used to dispatch tightly-grouped crowds once they start dropping from poison/fire damage. One point is sufficient, but it may be increased if desired. * Bone Armor (1+) Useful for absorbing some physical damage. Because this build is very tight on skill points do not over-invest in this skill. Its main use is to absorb a blow or two as you run in to strike with Poison Dagger and retreat to safety. * Bone Prison (1+) Synergizes with Bone Armour. This skill is very useful when combined with Meteor and Fire Wall as it will hold the enemy stationary within the fires created by these spells. Tactics Tactics are fairly straight-forward, and largely similar to the standard Daggermancer tactics. Against Crowds: Use your Fire Golem and/or hireling as a lure to draw enemies into a crowd and hit them with Lower Resist. Use Meteor, Fire Wall and Poison Nova to deal damage to them en-masse. Once they start to drop use Corpse Explosion to mop them up. Against Bosses/Uniques: Again, use Fire Golem and/hireling as a lure. Use Lower Resist and Poison Nova/Meteor to begin to wear them down. Quickly run in and stab once with Poison Dagger before falling back and continuing to use Meteor or Fire Wall to deal fire damage while Poison Dagger does its damage. Repeat as necessary. Gameplay and tactics General tactics Due to unique play of this build there are few things player should know on how to attack and defend enemies. Knowing that attack is best defense, but sometimes player will need to be cunning and retreat if groups are too large. What player needs to do is run toward enemies, cast Poison Nova which will slowly reduce enemies life, cast a curse and let Poison Dagger do heavy work combined with power of Iron Golem. Casting a curse There are few things player should know about the curse casting. First of all, many players instantly use Iron Maiden on every enemy they see. This is bad. Iron Maiden should be cast only on enemies that have very high damage such as Bosses - Duriel, Mephisto, Diablo and similar. With Iron Golem's Thorns ability this would prove deadly for enemies. Two curses player will mostly use would be Amplify Damage and Life Tap. Amplify damage should be cast regularly, and Life Tap should be cast if there is huge number of enemies. If group of enemies is more then player can handle, cast Poison Nova to and send Iron Golem to kill at least one creature, then cast Amplify Damage on enemies and cast Corpse Explosion to hurt enemies for extremely high damage. Category:Necromancer Category:Builds